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Thursday, June 7, 2012

Daisy Discusses Covers That Have Disappointed Me

So I know how it goes, 'don't judge a book by its cover' and all that. But here's the thing: secretly everyone does it. Cause it's usually the first thing you notice when you see a book. The cover and the title. Both are SO important if you ask me.
But enough on that, what I really wanted to share with you all are some of the covers that have disappointed me throughout my reading life of the past couple of years.

Man, I did not love this book! And the cover is so pretty!! I know, I'm probably a minority for not liking this series, but it just never worked for me and just looking at this cover makes me sad all over again... And seriously, ALL the covers for the books in this series are pretty! I read in a time where I hadn't learned to DNF yet, and I sort of skimmed through to the end, but for some reason the characters and the storyline just didn't grow on me.

Confession: I am still a sucker for a girl in a dress. I stumbled across this one when I had just finished Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle series and couldn't get enough of the time period of late 1800s-early 1900s, so I thought I would just eat this up. Especially after someone described it as Gossip Girl in 1899. And I was just not feeling it and the story was nowhere near as gorgeous as that dress on the cover... I mean, I want to OWN that dress!

Look at that cover!! It's SO intriguing! I mean, I absolutely love it! But after reading 200 confusing pages wherein basically nothing happened, I gave up. I was really sad to DNF it, but I just couldn't do it anymore. And I KNOW, I'm probably a minority with this one as well, but it seems to be either hit or miss and for me it just, well, missed.

So this cover is one that I don't necessarily love. It's just that the cover was misleading (as well as the summary, but we're not talking about that right now). This cover made me expect a cute, fun summer read. And boy, was I DEAD WRONG. It was absolutely not fun or cute or anything remotely resembling either of those adjectives. To be honest, it was a bit depressing. If you're interested in my complete thoughts on it, check out my review on my personal blog.

This is quite possibly the most beautiful cover of 2010 and I was aching to get my hands on a copy and just devour it, cause with such a pretty cover you couldn't possibly go wrong, right? RIGHT??
Ahem. So yeah, basically this was 496 pages of an angel obsessing about her boyfriend and just being naive and too stupid to live. In my humble opinion. But did you know that Xavier was really hot? Cause it's mentioned, like, 500 times... For more opinions on this thing, check out my review on my personal blog and Jana's review on her blog.

So you guys might remember how I had issues with this book? And really, if you look at the cover closely you can see London. IN RUINS! And OMG, I am SUCH an anglophile, any cover that has the Big Ben or the Tower of London or the London Eye or basically, anything that has to do with London, will get my attention. And I love that she's pictured from the back and she's sort of in the shadows being all mysterious and making me say LET ME READ THAT!!! And well, yeah, it just absolutely wasn't my kind of book in the end.

So, there you go, my personal graveyard of the covers that have disappointed me. And I'm sorry if I offended anyone by disliking one of their favourite books (please don't yell at me...), I am very much aware that a lot of people have actually genuinely liked or loved these novels pictured above, but well, it's more interesting when people don't all have the same opinion right?

Now, tell me, what are covers that have disappointed you? Do you agree with me on some of these?

23 comments
:

Oh, I totally judge books by their covers. Pretty much all the time. Alas, it does not always work out well for me, but it does sometimes help me discover new authors, which is good. So, it's not entirely a bad thing.

I haven't actually read any of these, but I really wanted to read Halo (because, HELLO, most beautiful cover EVER) until I saw that pretty much everyone agrees with your thoughts. Alas.

I'm a librarian, and the most misleading cover I've seen so far at work was a very chicklitty-looking thing for Tess of the D'Urbervilles, possibly the most depressing piece of literature ever written.

I felt the SAME WAY about Wicked Lovely. People love those books....and I am on your side. There was so little that interested me. Except for Seth. He was an unexpected surprise in a series I don't plan on finishing.

I think everyone judges books by their covers. After a well-written book, it is one of the most critical marketing elements. Those are such pretty covers! So sad they didn't meet the expectations they put out to the world.

I love the covers for The Luxe series but I hated the first book, abandoning it halfway through because I hated all of the characters so much! I continue to admire the covers but I won't read the books because they just made me so frustrated.

I definitely agree with the fact that we all secretly judge the books by the cover. I haven't read most of these (the only one was THE LAST PRINCESS) and I agree, that book was totally not what I expected. I was really disappointed!

These covers are pretty! It's so annoying when you love a cover and then the book is disappointing. What I hate even more though is a misleading cover; when a book's content has no relation or hardly any relation to its cover. Grrrr I getz angry x

Seconding Bookworm1858 above — the Luxe covers are so pretty and then there are hardly any characters you actually want to root for! Most of them are selfish and/or despicable.

Also, I don't think I got past the first 2 or 3 chapters of Halo...they just didn't grab me, and I read some negative reviews, so back to the library it went. It sounds like it didn't get any better – sorry you suffered through the whole thing! :(

I enjoyed Wicked Lovely but I have not read the rest. The covers are all very nice so it sucks to hear that they didn't measure up for you. My cousin is about to read Halo so I will have to ask her what she thinks about it as well. I love the cover. Very disappointing to hear it wasn't very good.

I think everybody judges books by their covers to some extent. I completely agree with Susan, it's just such an important marketing tool. That having been said, it's so annoying when the book doesn't meet expectations. I've had a few covers disappoint me recently.

I agree with you on Wicked Lovely, I had trouble liking the book and the characters, was totally expecting something else too. I haven't read any of the others on your list, but they do have nice covers at least!

Aww that's too bad, I really like the covers for Imaginary Girls and especially The Last Princess. It looks like I'll skip them both. I hate when it seems like more work goes into making the cover pretty than into the book itself.

I agree with you on Wicked Lovely and Luxe. I managed to finish them, but I honestly don't remember anything about them at this point. If there's nothing that makes me remember them, I know I didn't enjoy them.

I haven't read many of these but I totally agree with you on the one's I have. Imaginary Girls, so dull I couldn't even make it past page 60. The Last Princess, I had major issues with this one as well. Most of the same things you wrote about in your review except I didn't even finish book! And while I haven't read Luxe myself (my friend told me they were horrible) I am in love with that dress. I would wear it any day!

I've been having huge problems not just with disappointing books with beautiful covers, but with book covers that are completely misleading. It's like the art department is focusing on the pretty over the relevant. VERY annoying.

So I bought Luxe because I looove Gossip Girl and had heard the same review. But mostly because a piece of me would die if I didn't at least own a picture (or cover as the case was) with that dress. It is so lovely and the book was not. Classic case of high expectations maybe. What book could live up to that cover? lol

Judging books by their covers is a pretty normal occurrence to me. I tend to pick up books with covers that I adore and completely ignore the ones that don't seem as eye-catching to me. Of course, this sometimes ends up with me missing out on really incredible books or me getting disappointed by books with great covers but not-so-good stories!

Ha! The Luxe was recommended to me by ALL my friends pretty much. We had just finished the Doyle series too! <3 Great covers, but the story was way too flat for me. I don't think I finished it actually. Too distanced, the characters were all the same and yeah. NO, thank you. Glad I am not the only one who didn't like it!

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